On the last day of 2022, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced a bilateral ceasefire with five armed groups that are in his territory. However, after a few hours one of them backed down.
On January 3, the National Liberation Army (ELN) said that it had not accepted any ceasefire, which provoked the president’s reaction.
This Wednesday, the Government explained that the bilateral cessation was a response to the communities and organizations that ask for peace, this decision has the support of the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Colombian Episcopal Conference, the Ombudsman’s Office and the World Council of churches.
ELN suspends armed strike in Colombia after announcing Christmas truce
He added that the FARC-EP Central General Staff, FARC-EP Segunda Marquetalia, AGC and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada are committed to the agreement and will move forward with the start of talks scheduled for the next few days.
The ceasefire implies “the suspension of military operations and police operations” and ensuring “the necessary conditions for the exercise of the rights of public liberties throughout the national territory.”
The Petro government explained that the situation with the ELN is that on December 19 they declared a unilateral ceasefire and had asked that it act “in accordance with its desire for peace and study the possibility of a bilateral ceasefire.”
This, the Executive understood, as the intention to declare the bilateral cessation and publish a decree with it. However, this was suspended last Tuesday.
“Given the desire for peace expressed by the ELN and while the bilateral cessation protocol is being studied at the dialogue table, we invite this organization to declare a verifiable truce in response to the imperative call of the ethnic-territorial and peasant communities to maintain the cessation. bilateral agreement and non-violence in their territories”, he added.
The fact has drawn criticism from the opposition, members of the right-wing Democratic Center party consider that the president lied about the agreements he had supposedly reached with the insurgents and was wrong when making the announcement.
The head of the government’s negotiating delegation with the ELN, Otty Patiño, issued a statement explaining that Petro’s intention was to “shorten the times for armed negotiations and stimulate spaces for political negotiation to the maximum.”
Although the peace process is hurt after the tug-of-war between the parties, leftist senator Iván Cepeda, also a government negotiator, expressed confidence that this week’s differences will not erase “anything that has been advanced” in Caracas.
“Errors are corrected and we continue forward, without drama,” the parliamentarian tweeted.
Inspired by Guevarism, the ELN operates in at least 22 of Colombia’s 32 departments and profits from drug trafficking and illegal mining. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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